


strawberries and cigarettes

by gorejeongin



Series: i'll be good — jaymes young [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cigarettes, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kissing, M/M, Strawberries, Substance Abuse, everyone is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorejeongin/pseuds/gorejeongin
Summary: 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘫𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴,𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘺. 𝘪'𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘭,𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.— 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘯 - 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘴or: hongjoong's distanced himself from his members, seonghwa brings him back home.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Series: i'll be good — jaymes young [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710919
Kudos: 46





	strawberries and cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

> people always write strawberries and cigarettes fics with joong being the strawberries and hwa the cigarettes so i decided to switch things up a bit.
> 
> edit: this fic has been bugging me so i decided to just fix it up a bit and republish it, and at 4am with no sleep of all times. sorry for bumping an old fic like this. also i have no one to proofread atm so sorry for any mistakes

the knock on the door doesn’t startle hongjoong. he doesn’t get up, doesn’t turn his head to face the door, and doesn’t look away from the screen that has burned numbers off of his eye prescription over the past few years. he knows it’s seonghwa. he’s been begging him to come home every day this week; he doesn’t know why he continues when it never works. hongjoong can’t bear to be home these days. his skin burns if he’s not working, his fingers crave the feeling of his computer, piano, launchpad. lyrics skim his brain and he seethes every time he doesn’t get the opportunity to write them down. he knows he’s the leader of a group, that he needs to be with his members and check on them, but they’re all adults. a group of 20-year-olds can keep themselves alive, they’re not fucking children. 

he can keep himself alive, he tells seonghwa. ‘hyung, i’m not gonna die if i don’t sleep on a bed. eden’s couch is comfier than that piece of garbage at home anyways.’ 

he knows he’s lying to himself. he loves that bed. he loves being in a room with seonghwa and hearing the boys mess around late into the night. he doesn’t know what’s gotten into him recently, but that love doesn’t seem to show up anymore. the warm summer feeling of the sun beaming through the windows, the soft burn of a warm cup of hot chocolate pouring down his throat. it doesn’t radiate through his body as it used to when he looks at his members. he feels guilty about it, one hundred per cent, but he just doesn’t know how to fix it. 

“i thought eden told you not to smoke in here anymore?” seonghwa’s sweet and mellow voice somehow makes the burn of smoke going into his lungs smoother. 

ah yes, the smoking. he doesn’t remember exactly when it started, but one day he found himself picking up a bottle of name-brand coffee, a bag of chips, and a pack of cigarettes from the store every week. he doesn’t smoke the whole pack in a week, but it’s better to have extra in case he runs out. he occasionally gives eden one or two, followed by a smack upside the head and a request for a lighter. on the rare occasion that he can’t go to the studio, he hides extra packs underneath his mattress and creeps into the bathroom and smokes out of the window. with a keen eye, you can see some of the ash on the window sill.

“he’s a hypocrite. he smokes in here just as much as me. even more, probably, considering that it’s his studio,” joong replies, taking another drag as if that was spiting seonghwa and not poisoning himself. he knows it’s bad. everyone that smokes in this day and age knows it’s bad. but this is the closest thing he has to getting high that’s legal in korea. he hasn’t smoked weed since they visited los angeles, and god does he fucking miss it. the numbing, the forgetfulness, the playful energy that filled his bloodstream that he couldn’t summon himself because of the stress that being an idol on tour subjected him to. drinking doesn’t give him the same effect, instead leaving him lethargic and noodle-limbed. he hated the feeling which is why he only drank when he was in a good mood. substance abuse isn’t the best way to deal with his issues, but he had nothing better to do. maybe he could see a therapist. he’ll add it to his to-do list. for now, he had an appointment with his at-home therapist. 

“so i assume you won’t want to hear me tell you that smoking is bad for you for the twentieth time, then?” seonghwa makes himself comfortable, sitting on the long wine-coloured couch and cracking open a window. he subjects himself to a lot when it comes to the hurricane that is hongjoong, but secondhand lung cancer will not be on that list. 

hongjoong scoffs, a small cloud of smoke billowing out of his mouth. “you know me so well, darling. i wonder why you keep telling me even though you’re aware of how little i care.”

seonghwa’s heart wrenches. hongjoong truly looks beautiful, even at his worst. the clouds of smoke flowing around his small body, barely alight with the screens of his computer monitors and nothing else. he doesn’t want to see his youthful skin become wrinkly, his bright smile become stained, and the ringing bells of his laugh becoming nothing more than the harsh clanking of rusted metal.

“hey, watch your attitude, brat. don’t be mad at me for giving a shit. i don’t want your career, actually all of our careers, ending early because you have to start rapping through a hole in your throat. you’re helping no one doing this, you know?” seonghwa bristles, pushing himself off of the couch to walk up to hongjoong. the younger looks even smaller than usual. 

“oh, you don’t think i fucking know that?! you think i figured that smoking my emotions away would be the cure-all to all my problems?! no, i fucking hate myself for this!” 

suddenly hongjoong’s cold and wanton surface has crumbled in front of seonghwa. he was right. hongjoong was smaller; he had shrunk, the real him, in order to fit inside this shell of indifference. all his issues were locked out, but as time went by, the shell began to deteriorate. all of his problems had beat away at it until it was nothing but fragments about to collapse on itself. and it did. 

a shaky breath filled hongjoong’s lungs. his burnt abused lungs. “i couldn’t feel anything. it was like my world had turned black and white. yunho’s smile that was sweet like honey, wooyoung’s cackling that filled my mouth with the taste of lemons, yeosang’s honeydew-coloured warmth that gave me comfort. it was all gone. the spigot has gone dry, seonghwa. one by one, all the love and joy that used to fill our dorm stopped. yunho’s laugh had spoiled, wooyoung’s loudness had shut off, and yeosang froze over. my job as a leader has failed, all because i couldn't be selfish for one second.” 

the tears that were supposed to be falling from hongjoong's eyes fell from seonghwa's instead. they weren’t streams, but little droplets; they still wet his cheeks nonetheless. was seonghwa too late? did he leave hongjoong to drown in his attempt to teach him how to swim? he knew the ‘i can take care of myself hyung’ was a lie, but how could he not see his friend, his leader, bury himself in his casket? 

“you can talk to me. you can always talk to me. none of our happiness is your responsibility, it never has been. you say that you feel awful because the members aren't happy anymore, but do you not realise why that is? do you know how often the boys ask about you in the dorms? how they felt when you basically never came home? how gutted when wooyoung found three packs of fucking cigarettes under your mattress while looking for a belt to wear? we all had to lie to the manager and say we were all feeling blue because of jongho’s leg and not because our leader had become a fucking chain smoker. we know you feel like shit nowadays, but locking yourself away to produce music you won’t even be proud of isn’t going to help you. you're allowed to be selfish, hongjoong, but you don't even realise that's what you're doing right now. taking care of yourself once in a while isn't selfish, but destroying yourself in front of the boys in front of you isn't gonna make you or anyone else feel better.” hongjoong’s eyes were wide, wavering as small streams dripped from them. he looked like a child getting scolded for breaking his new toy.

the sleeves of his shirt were nonsensically large, not even a stylistic choice but rather the result of because his body shrinking from the lack of sustenance other than caffeine and nicotine. his collarbones didn't jut out as much as they do now and his lips used to be full and not brittle skin that bled when he pulls and bites them. his skin had a sweet, artificial strawberry coloured tint to it at one point, but now it was no brighter than the 80% creamer and sugar-filled coffee he drinks. when he brings the cigarette up to his lip, the weight of the excess cloth causes his sleeves to fall, revealing the little circular scars on his arms from when he tried to make himself feel something the easy way. though he may have never realised it, seonghwa was always the one to throw out his old beauty blenders that he used to cover up the marks so the stylists wouldn't see. and when the makeup came off and the stage clothes they wore was thrown onto racks that they wouldn't see again, he wore the same few long sleeves in the dorms that slowly became longer and longer as he shrunk into himself and cried during the long nights he spent in this very studio.

neither of them spoke, letting the tension spill out the window along with the smoke as they both wept in silence. seonghwa finished first, but hongjoong was still snivelling in his seat, wiping away fat teardrops and bruising his skin with the rough fabric. before his heart shattered into crystals, seonghwa decided to take matters into his own hands, walking behind hongjoong's quivering figure, saving his work, a barely assembled track that was better off being deleted anyway, and shutting down the computer. pushing the younger’s wheeled office/gaming/whatever chair over to the L-shaped sofa he was sitting on seconds ago, seonghwa took a seat opposite hongjoong. he had yet to stop crying, but his expression wasn’t as wrought and upset as before. his eyes were sore but still showed his real self fighting to return, shining past the angry veins surrounding his irises. 

“gosh, how could such a tiny body hold so much emotion,” seonghwa mutters, a minute grin pushing up the corners of his lips. hongjoong pouts, and seonghwa's grin splits, white teeth framed by his flushed lips. seonghwa smudges away hongjoong’s falling teardrops, the younger letting out a quiet whimper. it seems like seonghwa had sealed the broken dam behind hongjoong’s eyes because the tears stop flowing. seonghwa doesn’t let go though, he keeps hongjoong’s face, small, wet, and warm, in his hands and holds him there. beats pass in silence as they sit there, the hiccups of tears from long ago (maybe 10 minutes) begin to leave and his sore skin’s red flush begins to rise, echoing the strawberry colour that had been drained from him for months. the monochrome hongjoong’s colour had begun washing out.

the familiar prickle of tears begins to stab at the corner of seonghwa’s eyes as he watches hongjoong return to his original body. the cheerful, passionate, stubborn 21-year-old that used to inhabit this body before the demons of misery and guilt began to take hold of him and drag him six feet under. hongjoong had to carry more weight than he could bear for seasons, watching the leaves die with him in autumn but be unable to bloom alongside them when they came back in spring. it wasn’t even that long, but it felt like the youth had been ripped from his body, nerve by nerve. hongjoong was right to say that the colour had been wiped from his eyes because seeing the younger ones slowly become hopeless had made seonghwa feel like he’d never see the sun again. he’d never see jongho’s woody, earthy grin that was supposed to be as strong and unmoving as an oak tree, or hear san’s funny little noises, varying like the odd colours of cherries. or the way mingi’s eyes squint when he laughs like he’s eaten a sour apple candy.

seonghwa leans into hongjoong, connecting their lips and letting the younger absorb the colour from seonghwa’s body. it was unexpected, but that's exactly how seonghwa felt about tonight. he hadn't expected himself to melt the almost year-old igloo that hongjoong had frozen himself in, to cry the same pained tears of the brothers that couldn't help each other, or to kiss hongjoong and find the familiar sweetness of strawberries that he had tasted before to still be there underneath the ash and soot. the shining red flesh of those strawberries tint the tips of hongjoong's decorated ears and the sweet juice of the fruit soaks his tongue. cigarettes taint the strawberry milk left on seonghwa's tongue, but it doesn’t make him pull away. he lets hongjoong dig his fingers into his arm, lets him crawl onto his lap, and lets him taint the strawberry sweetness inside of him, hoping he would absorb some of it and return to the man he previously was. neither of them recalls when they part, but they remember the looks they gave each other. hongjoong a ‘why did you kiss me?’ and seonghwa a ‘you seemed like you needed it.’ 

seonghwa breaks the silence first. “do you wanna head back to the dorm?” he asks, voice quiet but clear, as if spoken directly in hongjoong's skull for only him to hear. joong nods after a while, pushing himself back into the rolling chair and wheeling himself back to the desk. the entire time, hongjoong's cigarette was still burning in the ashtray, falling apart on its own as the ash became too unstable to keep itself together. hah, that sounds familiar. he takes one last drag, to the disappointment of seonghwa, before snubbing it out. hongjoong writes out a text to eden that he’s leaving for the night, to which he replies ‘you should try doing that more often’. a smile tugs at his cheeks, cheeks pink like strawberry milk. 

“you should shower after we get in. you smell like cigarettes,” seonghwa mutters to hongjoong as they walk down their stairs in silence, the only noise being their shoes pattering down the stairs.

“you do too,” hongjoong replies, wringing his nose, "just like me."

“hey, why don't we shower together? it'll give us some great alone time to bond. i also have some fancy new shampoo.” a sly grin sits on seonghwa’s lips as he pushes open the building's front door. the streets were empty, understandably so considering it was encroaching four a.m.

hongjoong fakes a bashful gasp, completely floundering once a laugh escapes him, boyish and completely suitable for a twenty-year-old man that had just crawled out of an almost six-month depression. “oh? what scent is it?” 

seonghwa smiles wide and gummy, relishing in the ringing bells of hongjoong’s laugh that he thought was lost. in reality, it only took himself, a few harsh words, and a prince's kiss to wake it up.

"oh... i don't remember actually. it's probably something fruity. maybe it's strawberry?"

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/goresnghwa)


End file.
